Today is the 3rd Sunday in Advent- the Sunday of Joy. It’s the week we light the pink candle. The scripture reading from Isaiah reminds us that this is time to give thanks, to shout and sing for joy, because in our midst is the Holy One of Israel. In the midst of awaiting the presence of the child in the manger, we should celebrate the holy that is already in our midst. Because the truth of the matter is, God is already with us. The Holy One is already among us—in our preparations and in our waiting.
This notion of celebrating the holy that is already in our midst is a powerful one I think. This is what I hear from the prophet Isaiah. Find the joy within you now—find the holy that is already in your midst. Celebrate! Sing Praises, now! While we wait for the birth, we also celebrate that joy we’ve already found in God, in Christ, and in each other.
In this season of waiting and preparation, it’s tempting to postpone our joy- to say “I’ll get to that when the presents are wrapped” or “After all the baking is done, I’ll sit and enjoy my decorations. We spend a lot of time postponing our joy in this season. Or worse yet, we rush right through the joy.
But, in some ways that makes sense. Because while joy is…well joyful and wonderful it is also terrifying. Dr. Brene Brown says that Joy is the the most terrifying human emotion. She says, “It's as if we believe that by truly feeling happiness, we're setting ourselves up for a sucker punch. The problem is, worrying about things that haven't happened doesn't protect us from pain. Ask anyone who has experienced a tragedy; they'll tell you there is no way to prepare. Instead, catastrophizing, as I call it, squanders the one thing we all want more of in life. We simply cannot know joy without embracing vulnerability—and the way to do that is to focus on gratitude, not fear.”
I know I do this- if I have a really good day, I’m terrified of what will happen next because I’m sure that “the other shoe” is going to drop and everything is going to fall apart. I’m hesitant to declare my joy or happiness because I’m sure that will somehow jinx it and I’ll lose that moment of joy. But Dr. Brown is right- when we do that we squander the joy of the moment.
I feel like a lot of what happens around the holidays is squandering joy. We trudge through the season getting through our obligations one by one without stopping to embrace the joy and the vulnerability in those delightful moments. We settle for shallow victories- getting things checked off the list, making it through a party, getting through a celebration with someone we’re less than fond of. “Getting through” “surviving” and “checking things of the list” are shallow victories. They are transactions at best.
But, Pippa Gorge instead says that we should strive to “win deep”. Winning Deep is, “where you actually can feel the richness of your journey, you are attached to the joy and the struggle, you are attached to the mess, and it is generally done for reasons outside of yourself and the fulfillment of our egoic needs. It is done more from a soul level—it’s done because we can and because there’s a wild desire in it.” See, it’s embracing the entirety of the moment- the mess AND the finished product. It’s celebrating the countertop covered in flour and icing, AND the beautiful cookies. It’s finding joy in the work of decorating AND in the finished product. It’s embracing the whole process, not just the end result.
If that’s not a message for advent, I don’t know what is. Advent is about celebrating both NOW and celebrating later. Christmas is not an outcome. It isn’t a deliverable. It’s a process. I can’t tell you how many people look at my process of decorating and baking and ask me “Why do you do it?” or “how do you do it.” And that’s actually simple. I find SO MUCH JOY In putting u p my decorations. I find joy in the process. I love pulling out each ornament and remembering where I got it, reading the name and year lovingly written on the bottom, thinking about the trip or the person or the experience that is commemorated with that ornament. Or thinking about how happy it made me when I received the first piece of my christmas village- my St. Nicholas Church or my most recent piece- The train station. And yes, I love how all the decorations look now that they are up, bu I ENJOYED the process of putting them up.
It’s the same with my baking. It’s not a chore. I LOVE to do it. I love cutting and decorating the cookies. I love the look on my nephew Parker’s face when he gets his “aunt boobie cookies” each year. I love sharing the decorating with Dean and Lily. I love watching people pack up “to go bags” of cookies to take with them. It’s not about the finished product- it’s about how much fun I had getting to that product.
Maybe that sounds a bit too much like “Buddy the elf,” But it’s true.They is JOY in the Journey. And there is so joy in this journey to Bethlehem. And there is something to celebrate today- AND Something to celebrate two weeks from today. Celebrating now doesn’t diminish our Joy. Celebrating now AUGMENTS our joy for the days to come. Enjoying the journey doesn't’ make the destination less wonderful- it just makes getting there more fun. And claiming our Joy on this day, doesn’t diminish the joy on Christmas day.
So, let’s celebrate the Joy of Christmas RIGHT NOW. Even in our waiting for Christmas to arrive we don’t have to wait to celebrate the joy of that day.
So let’s celebrate now AND celebrate later. Let’s rejoice together and embrace all of the moments between now and Christmas morning.
Amen.